Packages comprising a container and dosing cap are well known in the prior art. The container is able to contain liquid or granular substances. The dosing cap is a measuring cup adapted also to serve as a closing system. With the help of said dosing cap a certain contained substance is dosed and the container is closed in a detachable manner. Lightweighted packages are desirable, because of the low weight and reduced cost in materials required for their manufacture and the reduced cost related to the disposal. It is an object of the present invention to propose a package which achieves a consistent material saving in the manufacture of said package.
A problem associated with these packages is the spillage from said dosing cap onto the container, when it is applied again after use on the container, which can cause contamination of the closure systems, such as threads, with the contained product, as well as dripping along the container, making the closure and container messy, very slippery and thus difficult to handle.
To solve this problem various solution have been proposed. EP-B-0 369 560 describes an assembly, in which the measuring cup, threaded on the outside of said neck of the container, presents a skirt extending into the pouring spout body, which protects the threads of said measuring cup. A further improvement has been achieved with EP-A-0 417 954 in which the drain back trough is part of the container's body. Said trough has to be formed through an inversion of part of the neck of the container after the blow-molding process.
Other solutions are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,416 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,239. The dosing cap has a fastening means formed on its external surface, adapted to be sealed tightly to the interior surface of a collar secured to the orifice of the container. This means that no extra skirt is needed in this case to protect the threads of said dosing cap, although an intermediate piece, which joins the container and the dosing cap, is still required.
In all the previous solutions no limitations on the amount of the packaging material required has been set. On the contrary, more packaging material has been added to solve spillage problems through specific back draining means. The present invention reduces the necessary packaging material by inserting the dosing cap inside the neck of the container directly, as will be described further on.
In order to save material for the manufacturing of a package, which needs to be dosed, such as liquid and/or granular detergent, softeners, bleaches and the like, it would be more desirable that said package is comprised only of two parts: a container and a dosing cap, but no transition piece to convey the back drain. In particular, it would be more desirable for the same reason to avoid the forming of a back drain trough on the neck of the container.
We have now found that these objects are met by partly inserting the dosing cap into the neck of the container. This inserted part, protected by the neck of the container, needs not to be of the same resistance compared to the rest not inserted into said neck. Nevertheless, minimum constraints have to be taken into account, in order to determine the effective material saving.
The amount of packaging material or weight of the dosing cap is primarily determined by the mass density of the manufacturing material and the thickness of the wall of said dosing cap. The thickness determines the final resistance and stability properties of said cap. The resistance and the stability are important features of a reusable dosing cap, since it has to be gripped many times in order to open the container, especially considering that most of the commercially available containers are refillable.